5. Social Groups and Societies
Group
- defined differently by various
sociologists, but in a general sense,
people who have something in
common and who believe that what
they have in common is significant.
- also called a social group
Society
- people who share a culture and a
territory
6. Groups are the essence of life in society.
examples of groups:
Workers in a corporation
Neighbors in a block
The family
A basketball team
The groups to which we belong help to
determine:
1. Our goals and values
2. How we feel about ourselves
3. How we feel about life itself
7. Sociologists’ definitions of
“group”
Albion Small (1905):
“ people who have some sort of
relationship so that they are thought of
together”
Michael Olmsted and Paul Hare (1978):
“ the essential feature of a group is
that its members have something in
common and that they believe what
they have in common makes a
difference”
8. Society
The largest and most complex group
that sociologists study is society.
Society consists of people who share
a culture and a territory.
9. Apartment Art
In the former Soviet Union,
underground artists formed hundreds
of groups, all of which shared
opposition to the Soviet state.
Members of one art movement, called
“Apartment Art” showed how difficult
life was during the communist rule in
USSR.
10.
11. As excerpted from www.noyspi.com:
The Man Who Flew Into Space From His Apartment,
one of Kabakov’s installations, presents a fictitious hero,
one who did the impossible and flew alone into cosmic
space. This hero felt alone, so using a makeshift
slingshot, he flew threw the ceiling of his apartment. In
the museum where the installation was displayed, the
viewer could only inspect the “apartment” from the
outside. The visitor viewed a scene that seemed to have
taken place just before his arrival. Kabakov did this to
recreate the fright and confusion of the communal
apartment’s other inhabitants (in the narrative).
12. The man living in the apartment had papered the walls
with Soviet propaganda and posters, giving it a very
Soviet feel. All that remained in the room were the bed,
the table scattered with drawings, the catapult and a
hole in the ceiling from which light shined through.
The drab room and primitive catapult suggest the truth
behind the Soviet utopia, in which the
communistic cosmic visions and political
goal were indestructible.
Kabakov was portraying the massive
force of communism and maybe even
the wish to escape from the
confinement.